Nature's Manifesto and the Growing Chair from Michel Bussien

Stockholm's Konstfack University College of Arts and Design recently exhibited their 2009 graduates, and from this pool comes the Growing Chair from Michel Bussien.

In an effort to bring us back to nature, the Swiss designer planted four trees to grow into the legs of a hollow plastic chair frame. Over time these hardy little guys grow strong and fill the plastic shell they are housed in, eventually allowing one to take the frame off and settle back into the arms of mother nature herself. One would imagine that rate of growth and strength depend quite a bit on the variety of tree, and at some point it seems likely that the seat would grow too high to reach, but until then, why not grow four and a table to boot for your outdoor entertaining?

Here's what Michel Bossein had to say about his creation:

"Having evolved from nature, we have
gradually differentiated ourselves from it. Modern society has come to
build itself on the perception that nature and man are separated. This
differentiation has come to inhibit us and our way of creating. We have
now reached the point when the way forward is going back.

We
have to accept that we and everything we create are part of nature.
This mindset is essential for evolution as a whole. When applying this
to our way of thinking we will liberate ourselves from stagnated
conventions.

To move further we
need to incorporate the living matter that surrounds us. Let us use the
complexity of living nature and include it in our creations. These
creations will then redefine the way we reconstruct nature. Only then
will we truly move forward.